


Testimonial Privilege

by orphan_account



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: All Ways, Always, Angst, Benson's Angry, Fake Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lawyers, child endangerment, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Barba and Benson, who haven't spoken to each other in ten months, have to get married so she's not compelled to testify against him in court. Tropey goodness ensues.Chapter 1 is the snippet from "Permutations" + 2000 words of angst.





	1. Chapter 1

Randy Dworkin’s eyes darted nervously from one wall to the other in his cluttered office. Usually the nervousness was just an act, a ruse to make opposing counsel believe he was a fool, a frazzled attorney who’d never argued constitutional law before federal judges, who didn’t have decades of experience as a defense attorney. Tonight, as he sat behind his desk, hands folded in front of him, with Olivia Benson in one of his office chairs — teeth gritted, pupils shooting daggers — and Rafael Barba, staring into his own lap, in the other, Dworkin wasn’t putting on a show.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Benson said, each word dripping with anger.

“If you want to protect him from —”

“I don’t,” Benson answered loudly, and there was Barba, in his corner of Dworkin’s office, slumping a bit in his chair, white shirt uncharacteristically wrinkled beneath his gray vest, having the nerve to look wounded.

Wounded, like an idiot bird who’d flown the coop straight into a windshield, or a chicken who’d forgotten that chickens can’t fly. 

“I mean, obviously he should be protected from overprosecution, again, and here it’s far more clear cut that he did the right thing even if he acted outside the law, again, but what you’re suggesting could cost me my job, Mr. Dworkin, and don’t get me started on how it’ll confuse my son.”

They hadn’t spoken directly to one another since Barba left the DAs office, since Barba left _her_ , apparently without understanding the implication that he was _leaving her_. Ever since the morning a few days after Thanksgiving when she’d discovered that the three stepdaughters of the perp they were investigating had been kidnapped by the perp’s own defense attorney — or rather, that defense attorney had arranged for the girls to fly to Denver to stay with their aunt, a series of actions that the Manhattan DA’s office was calling second-degree kidnapping — she’d found herself in conference rooms and offices with that defense attorney, but refused to speak to him. 

She saw in Barba the man he once was, but she also saw the buckled, potholed road behind him, the storied career he was destroying bit by bit.

They’d spoken through Dworkin, through Stone — who’d already subpoenaed her testimony as the investigating lieutenant, which was why they were here tonight — and through her squad. Barba had tried, several times, to address her directly. She wouldn’t let him. 

“No,” Barba said, pressing his cheek into the palm of his hand so hard that all the muscles in his face shifted, “absolutely not.”

“If you’re married, she won’t be able to testify against you,” Dworkin insisted.

“Absolutely not. Think of something else.”

Benson shook her head. “And besides, the judge would see right through it. You and I,” she told Dworkin, “would both lose our jobs.”

“I’m in private practice,” Dworkin said.

“You’d be disbarred.”

“I mean, if they haven’t disbarred _him_ yet,” he said, titling his head toward Barba. “But seriously, you two would “get your stories together” first, so to speak. You’d convince everyone you’ve been sleeping together for a year, secretly, something like that.”

“No,” Barba said.

“My grandma always said you do whatever you have to do to save a life. You saved those three girls’ lives, their health, their safety, at the very least. But you know, and I know, that foster care will probably give them back to their mother in a few months, and you know, and I know, that the mother’s going to keep the husband around and hide him from the social worker while she pretends they’re in the middle of a divorce. Make my grandma proud, Rafael, and let’s use this as an opportunity to fix the laws in this goddamn state.”

Benson caught Barba looking at her. When their eyes locked for a tenth of a second, he immediately looked away.

“Think of something else, Mr. Dworkin,” Benson said before gathering her purse and her coat. “You are right about the laws needing to change, but you are wrong about this sham marriage idea.”

“So you’re going to testify against the man who used to be your best friend, or you’re going to perjure yourself and lose your job and possibly spend a few months in jail. What’ll it be, Lieutenant?”

“Think of something better,” she repeated, and headed for the elevator without saying goodbye.

Barba met her there, just as the elevator doors opened.

“For the record,” she said, her first words to him in ten months, “you did the right thing.”

“Not as a defense attorney sworn to zealously defend my client, but thank you, Liv, the sentiment is … appreciated.”

“You dropped him as your client first.”

“I did.”

“That’s what Rollins told me.” They walked out into the lobby. “Dworkin will come up with something better than using a sham marriage to get me out of this subpoena. He’s a clown, but he’s smart.”

“I’ll be back on the stand, Stone questioning me again, what a joy,” Barba said, the winter wind now biting their eyes and noses as they stood together on the sidewalk outside the building that housed Dworkin’s office. “You’d think the DAs office would be willing to offer me probation this time. You’d think.”

“How are you getting home?” she asked.

“Rideshare.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you —”

“When Dworkin comes up with a better idea, maybe then.”

She wasn’t about to offer him a lift, not when he was two miles out of her way uptown and not when he’d broken her heart like she hadn’t let anybody break her heart in years.

—

With an elbow resting on his desk, Barba pressed his forehead into the heel of his hand, his headache threatening to poke his eyes out from the inside. He’d taken two Excedrin and consumed three cups of coffee, none of which had been any help. 

Foreheads: foreheads would be the end of him.

He’d been met outside his midtown law firm — which was surely getting ready to fire him on account of his dropping a client so he could help the client’s alleged victims get out of state — by a process server. The Larchmonts had already filed civil suits against him for kidnapping and breach of contract. If he was found guilty or took a plea deal, his former client could drag him through the streets of Manhattan straight to the bank.

“What?” he said far-too-harshly to Rita Calhoun when she opened the door to his office.

“Excuse me, I did you a favor by talking you up to my boss, telling him what you did earlier this year was a fluke, and you repay me by kidnapping your client’s daughters?”

“I’ve won four of the five cases I’ve taken to court since I’ve been here,” he said, rehearsing the argument he was going to present to the senior partners when they tried to chew his head off. “I’ve gotten five others plead out with no jail time.”

“You are charged with _kidnapping_ three minors,” Rita reminded him. “Apparently every time you feel ethically funny these days you commit a felony. What sort of center-right blather about individualism does Dworkin have up his sleeve for you this time?”

He rubbed his head. “You think I should quit before I’m fired?” he asked, his voice shaking in a way he hadn’t intended.

“Stick it out,” Rita said. “Let ‘em fire you, you’ll collect unemployment that way. So you’re really going to get up there on the stand next week, let that asshole Stone grill you until you’re in tears again?”

“If my affect’s flat they’ll think I’m a psychopath.”

Rita blew a raspberry with her lips. “Dworkin’s got to get them to drop the charges or plead you out on a suspended sentence. If not for the conflict of interest, I’d do it myself, but the Larchmonts are also suing the entire firm on account of what you did. And you know why you’re completely screwed, right? That subpoena. Stone’s going to compel testimony from Olivia Benson, and you’re _screwed_.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” he said, swiveling his chair back and forth.

“How does she feel about testifying for the prosecution?”

“She’s said maybe twenty words to me since February, all of them last night.”

“You and your lawyer were conferring with the prosecution’s star witness?”

“She doesn’t want to testify against me. She hates me, and she’s right about that, but she doesn’t want to testify.”

“Only way that won’t happen is if you two get married in the next six days,” she said with a laugh, pausing when she expression on his face. “Holy fucking hell, Dworkin told you to get married so she doesn’t have to testify against you?”

“No,” he said, “no, of course not, that would be unethical and ridiculous.”

“I agree, but it may be your only way out.”

“What would we tell her son?”

“You’re the one who dug yourself into this hole,” Rita said. “You figure it out.”

—

The text from Benson came in at 6, just as he was leaving for the day: _Come over at 9, after Noah’s in bed. I want to talk about what was brought up yesterday._

He showed up at a quarter after 9 to ensure that Noah would be asleep.

After almost a year, her apartment was still a familiar space, even if the gulf between them offered him little comfort.

“So,” she said, sitting across from him at the dining table — no drinks poured, none offered — “it seems that marrying me may be the only way to keep Stone from compelling me to testify. Let’s get our stories straight and apply for a license.”

“Liv, there’s got to be a better way.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know, but there’s got to be one.”

“I’m being called to the stand on Monday and tonight’s the deadline to apply if we want a marriage license at City Hall on Friday. I’m throwing you one last line here.”

“Maybe it’s better if I push for a plea deal, a suspended sentence before we go to trial.”

“Don’t play the martyr with me, Barba. Take it or leave it.”

Barba flattened his palms against the surface of the table ad sucked in a deep breath through his nose.

Benson stood and went over to the kitchen counter where her laptop was open. 

“Go ahead,” Barba said, “start the process.”

The application took only ten minutes. Benson completed it in silence except to ask Barba for his social security number and current address. Barba then called Dworkin to apprise him of the situation; he didn’t want a written record of their plot in text message form.

“Now,” Benson said, sitting back at the table, “our story.”

“We’re going to have to lie to a lot of people.”

“Yes.” She stared wistfully down the hall, in the direction of Noah’s bedroom. “I’m only doing this on account of the fact that you — anyone — shouldn’t have to go to jail for helping those girls get away.”

“I understand.”

He did: back in February, he’d told her that she’d changed his life and so he had to move on. It made sense at the time, when his mind and whatever was left of his soul were sorting through the fallout of the Householder case. _You changed my life, I love you, will you please stay in it?_ was what he was supposed to have said. He knew that now, belatedly.

“We’ve been sleeping together for a year.”

“Hmm?” Barba said, snapping out of his stupor.

“That’s what Dworkin suggested. Yesterday. In his office.”

“Right, right.”

“So we started sleeping together last December. We need a full story, or Dodds and the DA will call me out on the sham, and then my job’s at risk.”

“Then we started sleeping together in February.”

“Why?”

“If our relationship, romantic or otherwise, began while I was still in the DAs office, verdicts could be overturned.”

“Fine. February. But I don’t want to talk about February.”

“You’re the one saying we need a full, fleshed-out story.”

“After your not-guilty verdict, we were in a cab on our way back to your place so we could celebrate with a good scotch, your nerves were shot, and I kissed you.”

“In the cab?”

“Yes.”

“And then you spent the night at my place,” he said.

“No, no, I would have had to have been home to relieve Lucy by 6. It was a passionate quickie. You still had most of your suit on.”

Barba raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Benson asked.

“We’re not going to tell people _that_ , are we?”

“I’ve worked undercover. I was part of a three-month-long undercover operation once. Big stories need small details, even if they never come up in conversation. Besides, Amanda’s going to wonder —” She stopped herself abruptly and cleared her throat.

“Finish that,” Barba insisted.

Benson sighed. “Amanda’s going to wonder why she walked in on me crying in my office once in February.”

“Oh.” He reached for her; her whole body trembled with — revulsion? — as she scooted her chair away. 

He wanted to call her sweetheart, cariño, querida, something gentle, and swear he’d never meant to cause her pain.

But he knew she wasn’t having any of that. This — their made-up romance —was all business.

“After our “passionate quickie,” you didn’t hear from me for three days,” Barba suggested, “and then I said goodbye, because I was terrified that my being in your life meant that you were stuck with another person you had to _fix things_ for, a burden, not a friend.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “You came back in March.”

“I got down on my knees and begged for forgiveness.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I suppose not.”

“You showed up drunk,” she said.

“That’ll convince the DA I’m a decent human being.”

“You didn’t realize how drunk you were until you got here. You were going to leave, but I was my foolish self again, always looking out for people even when they don’t look out for me, and I was afraid you’d freeze to death out there.”

“Thank you,” he said, trying to smile.

“So you stayed the night, in my bed. We’ve been together ever since.”

“And why have we kept it secret for” — he tapped his fingertips on the surface of the table to count — “nine months?”

“We were worried about the status of my job,” she suggested.

“Fair enough.”

“So we’ll get married Friday,” she said, “and you’ll move in for a couple of weeks until this all blows over. Then we’ll get the marriage annulled. Let me sleep on what we’ll tell Noah. Last thing he needs is you coming back into his life only to disappear again.”

Barba hung his head. “I’m sorry,” Benson told him. “That came out —”

“Exactly right. I know you’re not the only one I hurt.”

“It came out a little crueler than I thought it was. But I’m not going to continue to be hurt over you, you understand?”

“If you don’t want to get married, we don’t have to do this.”

“What other option do you have, Rafael? We have six days. I don’t like you very much anymore, but I also don’t want you to go to prison because of a couple of assholes grandstanding on behalf of Ben Stone’s ghost.”

“We’ll need a witness.”

“I’ll ask Amanda.”

“She can’t be complicit. That’s not fair to her.”

“I’m going to lie, just like I’m going to lie to the rest of my squad, and my boss, and Noah.” Her voice was breaking. He wanted to hold her. “And after this is over, I —” She had to stop herself, because her voice wouldn’t let her continue.

“We’ll have to pretend we’re committed to this,” Barba said, “at least in front of the judge at City Hall on Friday, and then in front of the criminal judge on Monday.”

Benson nodded. “You’ll have to kiss me.”

He let out a puff of air. “I don’t mind,” he said, half-joking.

“Not on the forehead.”

“I _know_ that. Here.” He leaned across the table towards her.

“Stand up,” she said. “We’ll be standing before the judge. Look happy. Look like we’re in love and really think it’s a good idea to get married right now.”

Barba put on a sarcastic puppy-dog-so-much-in-love expression, and Benson cracked a smile, a real one, before she closed her mouth and rolled her eyes.

“I trust you’ll be fine to kiss me on Friday,” she said. “No need to make things awkward before they need to be.”

That half-second flash — evidence that he could still make Olivia Benson smile — brought a small measure of joy to Barba’s weary heart.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re full of it,” Rollins said, leaning against the two-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room from Benson’s office. 

She’d already interrupted her boss’s story about a secret 9-month-long relationship with Rafael Barba three times. The last time, she’d added a slightly-condescending “honey” to the “you’re full of it.”

“Look,” Benson said, “I’m not saying our decision to get married this Friday has nothing to do with Stone’s apparent vendetta and the stupid subpoena, but we’ve been talking about marriage for a few months now.”

Rollins grasped the edge of Benson’s desk and leaned in close, as if she was interrogating a suspect. “When Carisi and I realized that the lawyer who bought the girls plane tickets and called their aunt was Barba, Carisi turned to me and said, “we can’t tell the Lieu, Barba already broke her heart real bad.” If you —“

“Your Carisi is _terrible_.”

“You and Barba have been together nine months and I’m from Staten Island, born and raised.”

“Believe me, or don’t believe me. All I’m asking is if you’ll be the witness at the ceremony.”

“What about Noah?” Rollins asked.

“He’ll be in school. And the witness has to be an adult who can sign the license.”

“I mean, what are you going to tell him?”

“He already — he’s been — I don’t know, Amanda.”

Rollins stood up again and pressed her hands into her lower back, stretching her overtaxed muscles. “Harder to lie when I drag your kid into the picture, isn’t it?”

“Good technique,” Benson said.

“I’m there with you Friday if that’s what you need.”

“I don't want to make you complicit. I’m your boss. It’s not right.”

“Stone, with McCoy right behind him I’m sure, is bad that Barba was let off with a slap on the wrist, or a not guilty verdict, however you look at it. They think it’s an embarrassment for the DAs office. This trial is a vendetta, we all know it. They’re focusing on Barba when they should be focusing on Larchmont. I’m with you, Liv.”

“They’re handing the Larchmonts a payday by charging Barba,” Benson said. “The parents think they’ve just won the lottery, meanwhile the girls aren’t safe.”

“She’s initiated a divorce to keep the girls out of foster care, but I’m pretty sure her divorce is as much of a sham as your marriage.”

—

Benson and Barba called out of work on Friday morning so they could go to City Hall to get married. Rollins accompanied them and hung back in the gallery.

When they appeared in front of the judge, Benson slipped her hand into Barba’s. He gave her hand a little squeeze in return.

They were ready to play the part of a happy couple. 

_Olivia, do you take Rafael as your lawfully wedded husband?_

Lawfully. A lawful sham marriage. “I do,” she said.

_Rafael, do you take Olivia as your lawfully wedded wife?_

He flinched before his “I do.”

She wondered if his palm was sweating so much because in his mind they were making a mockery of a sacrament. 

When he repeated after the judge, “Before these witnesses I vow to love you and care for you as long as we both shall live,” he went hoarse.

The judge pronounced them married.

She turned to him, and he clutched at her other hand, craning his neck upward for a kiss.

She was wearing boots with a one-inch heel. If only she’d worn them instead of flats that day in February, he wouldn’t have been able to reach her forehead.

A ridiculous thought, anyway: he simply wouldn’t have kissed her, he’d have left her standing there with nothing at all, nothing but his parting words.

His lips were on hers. Soft for a split second, then a little pressure as he tenderly sucked at her bottom lip. He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. 

Back in the main lobby of City Hall, their arms were linked, and Barba’s eyes were red.

“Stop,” Benson said.

He nodded and sniffed once, then patted Benson’s arm. “Thank you.”

Rollins caught up to them and handed them their signed marriage license. “For the lovebirds,” she said, and they both laughed, half-heartedly.

—

Barba slept on Benson’s couch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. They didn’t talk much except when Noah was there and excitedly catching Uncle Rafa up on the events of his six-year-old life. They’d told him that Uncle Rafa would be staying with them for a few weeks while his kitchen was remodeled. 

“We’ve got to protect Noah’s heart,” Benson said. 

“Stone would have to be a monster to question a 6-year-old. None of this shit is going anywhere near Noah.” 

She was grateful for that. She remembered how he’d always been there, a reassuring, comforting voice, when she was dealing with Johnny D and Sheila Porter, when she was worried about the status of Noah’s adoption.

She remembered that afternoon she broke down, and he caught her and stroked her hair and gave her his handkerchief, when she was far too terrified for Noah to recognize what those gestures might have meant. 

But only a few weeks later, he’d thrown it all away. 

The road had buckled behind him.

—

Dworkin’s poker face in court on Monday morning was perfect.

Stone was shuffling papers, checking his phone, watching the door, when Benson finally appeared and sat in the front row of the gallery. Stone and Dworkin had already made their opening statements; Judge Barth had ordered a short recess before Stone was to call his first witness. 

Stone turned to Benson. “I’m just going to ask you for the facts of the case, what you discovered about the plane tickets, what you know for sure about phone calls that were made between Barba and the girls’ aunt, and so on.”

“I don’t think so,” Benson said, trying to suppress the smugness creeping into her voice.

“The subpoena compels your testimony.”

“Your job _compels_ you to focus on justice for the girls in the Larchmont case, not on Barba’s attempt to save their lives.”

When Stone called Benson to the stand, Dworkin stood and offered his objection. “The DAs office cannot compel Lieutenant Benson’s testimony, Your Honor.”

Judge Barth’s eyes narrowed. “Please explain, Mr. Dworkin.”

“Lieutenant Benson is married to my client.”

Stone made a fist and slammed it down on the table. Dworkin smiled. Barba stared ahead at the witness stand.

“If I may approach the bench,” Dworkin said, “I have the original marriage license here, and copies for you and Mr. Stone.”

“This is an obvious attempt to subvert the system,” Stone hissed when the copy was in his hand, “and that an NYPD lieutenant who is a unit commanding officer would participate in such a farce is shameful. The people ask for a continuance, Your Honor.”

“You’ll need it,” Judge Barth said. “See you in 48 hours, same time, same place. The jury is dismissed until Wednesday. I would hope that the people and Mr. Barba can come to some sort of agreement before then.”

Stone stopped Barba, Benson, and Dworkin in the hallway. “Dodds is going to be thrilled beyond believe to hear that a commanding officer married a witness so that she wouldn’t have to testify.”

They were outside the courtroom now, so she launched into the lie: “Rafael and I have been together since March.”

“No, you haven’t,” Stone spat out.

Barba hadn’t said a word. 

She wondered if the circumstances of this new trial were giving him flashbacks to February, and she was pinched by a twinge of empathy. 

Barba took a breath, coughed once, and swallowed hard. “Mr. Stone,” he said, taking Benson’s hand, “I don’t deserve this woman.”

“Save your phony declarations of love.” Stone pointed an accusatory finger at Benson. “I’ll have your job and your badge by the end of this week.”

“You have no say over what happens with my job or my badge. Come on, Peter,” Benson said, “you’re better than this.”

“So are you.”

“How about,” Dworkin said loudly, “you drop the charges against my client and focus your energy on getting the charges against Larchmont to stick, hm?”

“How about you mind your business about the Larchmont case?”

“Come on, Rafael, Olivia,” Dworkin said, “let’s get out of here and leave Stone to stew in his misdirected outrage while you two plan your honeymoon.”

“Your job is on the line,” Stone warned, taking a step closer to Benson.

“Counselor,” Barba said, “I hope you didn’t just threaten Liv.”

“I did not.”

“You said she’d lose her job if she doesn’t testify on the people’s behalf.”

“I said her job was on the line, because part of her job _is_ to testify on the people’s behalf. If you lose your job, Liv, it’ll be because you married the defendant to subvert a subpoena.”

“Go,” Dworkin said to Benson and Barba, “neither of you needs this.”

Outside, snow flurries were coming down. Benson blinked into the cold air. “Why,” she said, “ _why_ the hell do I put so much of myself on the line for people who never —” She bit her tongue, remembering how many times Barba was there for her, as a friend with somber advice and a warm touch, sometimes a handkerchief, sometimes a smile, and mentally retracted the “never.” “For people who let me down,” she added instead.

Barba’s eyes, wrinkled at the corners, forever expressive, looked like they desperately wanted to tell her something. She was glad that he chose not to say whatever it was that was on the tip of his tongue.

She remembered his admonition from ten months ago, right before he’d kissed her goodbye: _don’t say it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I've outlined it, the next chapter is all Benson's job on the line and angst and .... smut. Wish me luck.


	3. Chapter 3

Stone worked fast. 

Benson was called down to 1PP for a meeting with Dodds less than 24 hours after Stone was granted a continuance on his vendetta. “I’m sure you already know what this is about,” Dodds said, his voice almost — strangely — sad.

“You’re not —” she started to say.

“My hands are tied. A review board is meeting this Friday to discuss our options. You’ll want to contact your union rep. If the decision is made regarding your badge, I’ll push for you to be let go with full retirement benefits.

“How much of this is about Barba, and how much of this is about your son?” Benson asked.

“This is entirely about you, Lieutenant. You’ve toed the line before, but this time — you married the defendant, for god’s sake.”

“Rafael and I —”

“Have not been together all year,” Dodds said.

“In any case, that’s my personal life.”

“A sham marriage to dodge a subpoena is not your “personal life”.”

“Just do me a favor, Captain,” she said, “don’t drag any of my squad into this.”

“I won’t. We’re in agreement that this was all your doing.”

“And please make sure you give Sargent Tutuola in the interim all the resources he needs to ensure that the girls in the Larchmont case are safe.”

“Yes,” Dodds promised. “But you understand that, given the nature of what was done, my hands are tied.”

“Right.” She didn’t understand, but if the shit really did hit the fan hard at the end of the week, she’d ask Barba for the name of an employment lawyer, somebody Harvardy and hard-hitting, who could work with her union rep. 

It was the least Barba could do.

She’d come to the decision that after the charges against him were dropped, she wanted him out of her life for good. 

For months she hoped he’d return with a clearer head, some therapy under his belt, and an apology for leaving so abruptly, but when he re-appeared in her life, never having really _moved on_ from anything except the DAs office and her, needing her to fix things again, she’d given up.

Back at the 16th precinct, Stone was waiting for her outside her office. Fin was standing with him. 

“You’re getting what you want,” Benson said. “Board’s meeting this week to decide whether to fire me. Please get out of my way so I can make some phone calls.”

“You gonna tell her?” Fin asked Stone, raising his eyebrows.

“I think Lieutenant Benson is aware that this trial will proceed tomorrow, with or without her.”

“He subpoenaed Rollins,” Fin said.

“Come on, now,” Benson said, “Rollins is due in four weeks, she needs this job more than you know, and here you just backed her into a corner. I’m having them send a union rep for her too. Get out of my way.”

Stone chose to follow her into her office. “If an NYPD rep wants to give me a hard time about subpoenaing Rollins, I’ll subpoena Carisi. I’ll subpoena you too, Sergeant Tutuola. You can’t marry all of them, Liv. Thank god for bigamy laws.”

“Get out of my office,” Benson said, punctuating each word through the rage bubbling up in her throat.

Not sure if she wanted to put her fist through a wall, cry, resign, or set the DAs office on fire, Benson decided to cut out early and take a few breaths, or maybe a bath, before Noah got home from his afterschool science program with Lucy around 5. She arrived home around 3 and found Barba at her dining room table, working on a laptop, still wearing the gray slacks, vest, and white shirt from his wool suit. 

He stood, and he must have caught the fury in her eyes, because he didn’t move.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I was in court for a client’s plea deal this morning. I’m supposed to be taking the week off for my own trial, but —”

“Tomorrow, I want you to take whatever deal Stone offers you and then I want the marriage annulled and you out of this apartment and out of my life.”

His face fell. “All right,” was all he said.

“You don’t want to know why?”

He dared to take two steps closer. “Dworkin called me. Stone subpoenaed Rollins’ testimony, and he’s working on Carisi next.”

“Which means —”

“Our “marriage” was useless and if I’d just pressed my luck with your testimony we’d have had exactly the same result.”

She willed herself not to cry, focusing instead on anything else — the laptop, the pictures on the wall, Barba’s vest — the tailored gray vest that was part of the three-piece suit that had figured into a number of her fantasies what seemed like a lifetime ago. 

She knew _that_ wasn’t the best place for her mind to go either, but at least it was better than crying. 

The story she’d concocted about her kissing him in a cab followed by a quickie at his place with most of his suit still on was not something she hadn’t imagined before.

She’d had an image in her head, once upon a time, of herself straddling him in his office chair.

And, the day the not guilty verdict came down in court back in February, she had planned to kiss him as soon as the were alone.

But he’d taken off and disappeared for three days, and when he came back to kiss her forehead and say he had to move on, they were on the street, and he said _don’t say it_ , terrified of what would happen if she said _I love you_.

“Rafa,” she said, a little breathless, and he looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. She closed the space between them. “We’ve got two hours. Let me show you what you lost.”

Resolving the sexual tension between them wasn’t going to resolve anything else between them, and it certainly wouldn’t make what was bound never to be a clean break any cleaner, but at that moment, she was thinking that since she never got to kiss him, never got to love him, never got to convince him to stay, she should at least find out what the sex would have been like, provided Barba was on board.

If he wasn’t on board, she’d just take that bath and pretend that they were making a clean break from each other.

“Liv,” he said, kissing her lips, then her jaw, then her neck, “show me. I want you to show me.”

He backed her up towards the wall, where he desperately kissed her collarbone, and raised his thigh so her legs parted. “Bedroom?” he asked.

“No,” she snapped back, “couch.” The bedroom, _her_ bedroom, was far too intimate.

Barba nodded. She saw him swallow his words, a familiar sight this last week. He kissed her lips hard as she led them both to the couch and palmed him through his suit pants.

“Liv, Liv, Liv,” was all he said.

“What you lost,” she reminded him. 

In response, he turned them so she was on her back, him hovering over her on the couch. His lips on her neck again, he unbuttoned her shirt and unhooked her bra, pushing the garment up so he could rake his hands over her breasts. He kissed one nipple, then the other, and she could see him looking at her and then looking away, kissing her skin again and again as if to say, wordlessly, _I should have kissed you here. And here. And here._ But he knew better than to talk about what he should have done.

He unbuttoned her slacks, lowering them just enough so he could rub her through her underwear with his thumb. _I should have kissed you here_ , his mouth said as it wrapped around a nipple, his thumb continuing its delightful ministrations. _Here._ Tenderly, just above her bellybutton. _Here._ Again, too tender, too intimate, underneath her belly, but his quick work of removing her underwear and slacks eased some of the unwarranted tenderness. _Here._ Her hip, her pubic bone. _Here._ The inside of her thigh. And then his mouth was on her, thankfully, every nerve ending subject to his lips and tongue.

“Baby,” she moaned reflexively, the word reaching her vocal cords before it was anywhere near her brain, and she felt him laugh against her, a pleasant buzz.

Far, far too intimate, but she was already coming, so hard that she could feel the sensation all the way down to her shaking legs and back up to her trembling temples. 

He was smiling, a broad smile he’d surely meant to suppress, and he let out a “Liv” before he returned his lips to her stomach.

“Come on,” she said, “show me what else you’ve got.”

He raised an eyebrow and, sitting back on the couch, undid his suspenders and started to slide off his pants and underwear. When they were at his thighs, she straddled him, and he responded with an “oof.”

“If this what you wanted?” he asked, thrusting up against her without going in just yet. “You wanted me with “most of my suit still on,” you said.” He ducked his head to mouth at one of her breasts.

She was in no mood to talk, but she asked anyway: “Any reason we need protection?”

“No,” he said.

“Because if you leave me with some 16th century pirate disease, I’ll —”

He laughed. “I haven’t had sex in three years,” he admitted. 

She hadn’t wanted _that_ much information. 

“You?” he asked.

“Just gave blood six months ago,” she said, hoping he’d get the message that she hadn’t been with anyone since Tucker.

“And —“ he prompted.

_Really?_ she wondered. He was sliding his length up and down against her, waiting, apparently, and … oh. 

He was talking about pregnancy. 

She didn’t want to tell him. “I, uh, can’t,” she said quickly. 

He closed his eyes and nodded as if he was willing himself not to pry further or, god forbid, offer any measure of comfort. 

He thrust up inside of her, keeping his mouth over one breast or the other most of the time, groaning into her skin. 

“Hey,” she said, “now I know what’s up with that courtroom swagger of yours.”

That earned her a grin — the most gorgeous shit-eating grin she’d ever seen in her near-half-century on earth — and she very nearly forgot that she was kicking him out of her life. 

“Come for me again, Olivia,” he muttered against her skin. “Show me what I lost. Show me what I could have —”

“Shut up,” she told him. 

He slid a hand between them and before long she was burning up, and shaking again, and —

Hearing the sound of a key in the door. 

_A key in the door._ The deadbolt thunked open. 

“Shit,” she said, throwing herself off of Barba. 

In the split second between when Benson called his attention to Lucy opening the door — more than an hour early — and the door actually swinging open, Barba had managed, still painfully erect, to slide down to the rug and crawl through the living room, down the hall, into the bathroom, on his elbows. 

Benson dashed into the bedroom with her underwear and slacks, emerging half a minute later fully dressed, smiling as if everything was wonderful. “You’re early,” she said with as much brightness as she could muster. 

“A kid threw up on the floor, twice,” Noah said.

“Oh, good,” Benson said, thinking that the last thing she needed at that moment was a stomach virus sneaking its way into the apartment. 

The shower started running. Benson saw Lucy suppress a laugh.

“Who’s in the shower?” Noah asked.

“Must be Uncle Rafa,” Benson said. “I just got home. Go put your stuff away, start your homework.”

Lucy whispered _I’m sorry_ to Benson when Noah was out of the room.

“For what?” Benson asked innocently.

Lucy rolled her eyes and tilted her head towards the bathroom. 

Benson shrugged as if she had no idea what Lucy was talking about.

“Come on,” Benson told Noah, “I’ll take you out to the park and the diner, we’ll agree to do homework late just this once.”

They returned at 7 to an empty apartment. Barba had left his laptop and two suits, so she was sure he was returning, had maybe gone out to grab dinner and a drink and maybe ruminate over his life choices on a chilly December evening. Noah finished his homework and went to bed.

At 10, Benson — as much as she didn’t want to seem concerned, or to offer any gesture of friendship — texted Barba: [Are you ok?]

[Yes, just thinking about a plea deal over scotch.]

She wondered if she meant for himself or for a client, and wished she wasn’t so worried about the man who’d broken her heart. 

[I’m going to bed, then.]

[Thank you for this afternoon ;-)]

She couldn’t help responding: [Even though it didn’t … end?]

[I got a taste of what I lost, what I let go of like the fool that I am.]

[Stop. I’m going to bed.]

Benson lay in bed in the dark, a lump in her throat and pressure behind her eyes, the logical part of her brain that wanted only to protect her heart warning her _don’t say it_ , _don’t say it_ , _don’t say it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing else drafted YET, but unlike Barba, I should have ample time to finish this promptly. Ha, ha, ha.


	4. Chapter 4

When Benson woke up, her bedroom was dark except for the glowing green LED light from her clock radio, which told her it was 12:03 AM. She’d slept for less than an hour.

Barba was back. She saw a hint of light from the living room under her door.

She rose out of bed and went to him. 

He was sitting on the couch in pajama pants and an undershirt, barefoot, the comforter he’d been using for the last five nights in his lap, a lamp glowing dimly from the end table, the television on in front of him, silent, with the captions on.

His eyes were red. The space beneath them was swollen. He’d been crying.

“Evening,” he said, his voice betraying nothing.

She sat with him. 

In her line of work, in the patterns she’d seen in her own life, she refused to believe in third chances.

Second chances were good. Second chances were important. But third chances initiated cycles.

No exceptions.

Of course he hadn’t really screwed up this time. She’d have probably done the same thing he did given the opportunity, if the mother and CPS didn’t intervene. 

So it was a second chance.

A second chance for him to break her heart. She didn’t know if she could handle that again.

“Hey.” She reached out to pet the back of his neck, running her fingertips gently across the soft hair there. “It’s okay. You’ll get through this.”

His face crumpled. “Dworkin told me Dodds started the procedure to have you fired.”

“He did.”

“Because you —”

“Because regardless of how angry I am that you said you had to move on, about how you left, what Stone’s doing to you is profoundly unfair. Unjust. I did what I had to.”

“And what good did it do any of us?” he asked. Now the tears were apparent in his voice.

She had no answer for him. “You should get some sleep. You have court tomorrow — today.”

He showed her his forearms, which were bruised from his rapid crawl into the bathroom that afternoon. “It’s hard to get comfortable. I have a lot of pulled muscles, let’s say.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made some — poor choices — this afternoon.”

He let out a small, breathy laugh. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“Rafa,” she said, leaning on his shoulder, wishing it was last January again. 

He hugged her to him. “For the record, I realized that the grand goodbye in the middle of the street speech made me an asshole pretty much right after I did it, but —”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I love you, Liv.”

“Okay.”

“I mean on the level of —”

“Did you at least get to finish?” she interrupted.

“I tried, valiantly, but no.”

She placed her lips near his ear. “I’ve got a few old — techniques — up my sleeve if you need help.”

He looked at her sideways, through narrow eyes. “My heart, my brain, and seventy-five percent of my dick say yes, but my many, many pulled muscles say no.”

“Should — should we ice your injuries?”

“Dear god, no.” He flashed her a smile, then turned serious again. “Liv, I’m so sorry. Let me find you an employment attorney — the best, whoever that is — to work with you and your union rep. You shouldn’t lose your badge over me.”

“Okay,” she said, which was fast becoming her go-to response.

She saw him rub his thigh. “Come sleep in my bed,” she offered. “You’re clearly in pain.”

“It’s not that bad,” he said, stretching his leg with a wince.

“What’s one night? You’ll be more comfortable. I’ll sleep out —”

“No,” he said, and suddenly his arms were back around her, drawing her to his chest. “I’ve put you out enough already.”

“I could stay with you. We are … married … after all.”

“A sham marriage that put your badge on the line.”

“I couldn’t let you go to prison based on a vendetta.”

“Doesn’t matter. Stone has Rollins and Carisi’s testimony in his pocket. I’ll probably do at least three months, and that’s with a plea bargain. Liv,” he said, his face somber, “even with three months, there’s a chance I’ll be killed in there. Can someone get it into Stone and McCoy’s heads that because of what happened with Munson three years ago, I’m going to be murdered?”

She saw the terror he’d been hiding from her since Rollins and Carisi had first brought him into the squadroom after Thanksgiving.

Here she was, nursing her own broken heart, dealing with it as it needed to be dealt with, protecting it from always-precarious, never-wise third chances, and she’d overlooked the reason why that first trial, and now, the second, had thrown Barba off so badly, had forced him to follow his foolish impulse to leave her behind. Because of the wrath he’d incurred when he’d prosecuted Munson, the rapist corrections officer who’d murdered Mike Dodds, there was a real risk of Barba himself being murdered in prison. 

How could she have overlooked that?

“I won’t let them take your badge,” he stammered. “I have a whole network of attorneys through Harvard, I’ll make sure Rita Calhoun has your back too. If they force you out, it’ll be with full benefits, for Noah too, nothing less. I’ll leak all the sordid details of Stone’s pettiness and recklessness to the press if I have to. Whatever needs to be done.”

“Rafa,” she begged, “come on. You need to sleep.”

He turned off the tv, stood slowly — gingerly — and followed her to the bedroom. She tossed him an extra pillow. “For your knees,” she suggested.

He struggled to find a comfortable position. “All the muscles in my thighs must have spasmed to protect — well,” he said with a laugh, “when I threw myself onto the floor.”

“So,” she said, climbing under the covers with him, “it could have been much, much worse then.”

“Much worse.” He rolled to face her. “When your body decides to protect one organ —”

“Everything else spasms around it and you’re in pain no matter what.”

“Liv, hear me out. I reacted badly with the Householders. Everything about it, I shouldn’t have flipped the switch, should have told Maggie Householder I’d pretend I was never there if she did it herself, and instead I reacted out of very old wounds that I don’t want to talk about, but I shouldn’t have let influence my actions.”

“Okay,” she said for the millionth time, reflexively running her fingers through his hair, “now sleep.”

“Liv,” he said, her name like a plea for mercy in his throat. 

“I forgive you for that.”

“I broke your heart.:

“You think very highly of yourself.”

“Everything spasmed around me and there’s no excuse, absolutely none, for what I did to you. And now that I’ve put you in this position —”

“I could have said no.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek, which was puffy and damp with either sweat or tears. “I can’t handle being hurt again, you know, but what I said about wanting you out of my life, now that I think about it in this context — what you said about the COs — I didn’t mean it that way, but it must have come off as so, so cruel, and I’m sorry. Please get some sleep.”

“I won’t let them take your badge,” he promised again.

“And I won’t let them take anything else from you. This was different from the Householders. If I was in your position, where NYPD and CPS couldn’t do anything and the mother wouldn’t do anything, for whatever reason, I’d have also put those girls on a plane, risked what I had to risk.”

“Are we all right, between us, for now?” Barba asked, his heavy eyelids falling shut. 

“We’re married.”

Eyes still shut tight, he flashed her a grin. “If a psychic told me three years ago that you and I would be married, I’d be glad that she reaffirmed my belief that all psychics are frauds.”

_I love you_ , she thought as his mouth opened and he drifted off. But the words wouldn’t come to her lips because of how hard her spirit had spasmed to protect her heart.

—-

Benson found Stone on a badly-upholstered bench outside the courtroom, pen poised over a legal pad. When he saw her, he stood and threw the legal pad down on the bench. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Supporting my husband.”

“Give me a break.” Stone let out a puff of air. “Rollins isn’t coming today. She’s at the doctor. Said she was having more than four Braxton-Hicks contractions an hour, whatever that means.”

“Her first pregnancy and delivery were very difficult.”

“I want an affidavit from her OB/GYN that there was legitimate reason for concern and that she will actually be in the office on a fetal monitor all day as she claims. Judge Barth is angry.”

“At _you_ , I’m sure.”

Benson texted Rollins to check in, but didn’t hear back. What nerve Stone had to demand a _doctor’s note_ after all he’d put her squad through in service of a vendetta that had swept aside the real case.

Benson’s phone rang and Stone’s soon followed. “Carisi,” she said, walking over to the window, “what’s up? Is Amanda all right?”

“Far as I know, they’re just being cautious, making sure she and the baby are _safe_ ,” Carisi said, emphasizing the last word. “We’ve got worse problems on our hands, though. Larchmont, his wife, and the three daughters were able to skip town on account of the charges against him not sticking.”

“Where?” She looked over at Stone, who appeared to be having the same conversation as he leaned against the wall opposite her.

“Mom and daughters all have dual citizenship with Ireland. Lots of Irish Americans do that so they can go to school or work there if they want, but this, we’ve never seen this before.”

“But Larchmont himself doesn’t have an Irish passport. Should be easy enough —”

“Fin’s on the phone with the Irish embassy as we speak. Extradition could take up to six weeks since he’s married to an Irish citizen.”

“Where exactly are they?”

“The late husband’s sister, the one in Colorado, says they’re probably with Mrs. Larchmont’s brother in a suburb of Dublin.”

“Have the embassy notify local PD there.”

“Got it. Good luck, Lieu.”

“We’ll need it. Thanks.”

Benson returned to Stone, whose face had fallen in worry, for the girls or for his own career, she couldn’t be sure.

“What are you going to do now?” she said. “You were so focused on nailing Barba to a wall that we just lost our perp, and in my experience, we’ve got a real risk for family annihilation here, so good going, this is all on you.”

A court officer waved them inside. “We’re going to need to speak to Judge Barth in chambers,” Stone told her.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Benson was sitting in the gallery when Stone and Dworkin emerged from Judge Barth’s chambers half an hour later. She looked over at Barba, who started straight ahead, expressionless, his future in the hands of an ADA who didn’t have his priorities straight. 

_I love you_ was on the tip of her tongue, as always, but so was the memory of him warning her not to say it.

“This is a farce,” Judge Barth announced. “I am declaring a mistrial. Unfortunately, my hands are tied with regards to dismissing the charges — if I could within the bounds of the law dismiss them with prejudice, I would — but I’m declaring a mistrial and sternly warning the DA’s office to very carefully consider their next steps.”

At the defendant’s table, Barba breathed out.

“You’ve got a three-month reprieve, Mr. Barba,” Stone said when they were back out in the hallway.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dworkin said. “Did you not hear the judge?”

“Yes, she said she can’t dismiss the charges. We won’t even have to re-file.”

“Give me a break.”

“We’ll see you in three months. Bet you didn’t think you’d have to stretch your sham marriage out that long, Liv, unless you want to do your job and testify on the people’s behalf.”

“Don’t talk to me about my _job_ , Peter,” she said, taking a step closer so that they were eye-to-eye. “I hope you’ll excuse me so I can do my _job_ and get Larchmont extradited.”

Stone walked off in a huff.

Barba held on to Benson’s arm as they walked down the steps together. “You all right, Rafael?” Dworkin asked his client. “You’ve been walking all morning like you just got off a I’ll mind my own business.” He didn’t miss a beat.

“I’ve been sleeping on Liv’s couch, which doesn’t fold out into a sofabed,” Barba said, feigning exasperation, “and in the middle of a nightmare, I rolled onto the floor. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Anyway, I take it you two are aware you’ll have to stay married until I take that asshole to the Court of Appeals.”

Benson and Barba both nodded.

“I’ve got to get to work,” Benson told Barba when they were at the bottom of the courthouse steps and Dworkin had descended the subway stairs.

“The girls,” Barba said, his eyes sloped with worry, “do you think —”

“I’m trying not to think,” Benson said. “I need to get them back to their aunt or at least foster care as quickly as we possibly can regardless of what they’re saying about me at 1PP right now. Split a cab? You can head the rest of the way uptown.”

“Sure,” he said.

When they were in the back of a yellow cab, she touched his face lightly, with the back of her hand.

“What?” he asked.

“When you were found not guilty in February, I hoped we could ride home together, to my place or yours, or to a restaurant to celebrate. I was planning to —” She cut her own sentence off, leaned across the backseat, and kissed him, tenderly.


	5. Chapter 5

Benson didn’t get back to her apartment until after 10:30, the latest she’d worked in months. She and Jack McCoy had spent an hour at the Irish embassy, followed by another two hours holed up in the DAs office with Carisi, strategizing a way to get the three girls — the only three complaining witnesses in the Larchmont case — back to the United States.

_”I love you,” she’d told Barba in the cab that afternoon._

The girls’ aunt was flying to New York in the morning, and child services were on board with her becoming their temporary guardian, looming non-custodial kidnapping charges aside.

_”Sweetheart,” he’d said, clutching her hand, drawing it to his heart while the cabbie grumbled impatiently in the front seat. His face was halfway between Dead Serious and Trying Not To Cry, eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkled. “Thank you. For saving my life, I mean, not metaphorically. Literally, you saved my life by putting off that trial.” He kissed her, said he loved her, and promised they’d talk more after she dealt with Larchmont._

They’d have their perp back in custody within two weeks, but his wife hadn’t been charged with a crime and had dual citizenship, so there were no grounds on which to extradite her. She was fiercely loyal to her husband.

And because extradition was only applicable with criminal charges, they had no means to bring the girls home. 

SVU had first caught the case when the eldest daughter called 911. The mother denied the ongoing abuse. Their only outcry witness was the 911 operator. Without the girls, their three complaining witnesses, there was no case.

“Lieutenant Benson,” McCoy said when Carisi had already left the office to warm up the car, “I’ve advised Captain Dodds and the board that what you did —”

Benson held out a hand in front of her. “With all due respect, my only reason for being here tonight is Larchmont,” she told him.

“I’m going to —”

“Again, respectfully, I don’t want to hear it, Mr. McCoy.”

“This was never about you.”

_If it’s about Rafael, then it’s about me_ , she wanted to say — to admit — but that was one too many cards on the table. “It was about the Ledger,” she suggested instead.

McCoy quickly raised and lowered his eyebrows, his shoulders slumping a bit, and Benson wondered if his change in posture was a tell, a hint of guilt, but that was probably just wishful thinking on her part. 

So now she was home, finally, in an apartment lit only by a single lamp next to the rocking chair, where Lucy was sitting, reading from her tablet. 

“Lucy,” Benson said, “I’m sorry you had to stay so late. I thought Rafael would be home by now.”

Lucy bit her lip. “He is home. Sleeping off the muscle relaxers.”

Benson dropped her keys and bag on the kitchen counter and joined Lucy in the living room. “Muscle relaxers?”

“Yeah, I hope I’m not interfering where I shouldn’t, but, Liv, I saw — everything.” Her cheeks went crimson. “Noah was standing behind me, thank goodness, but, um, I saw how Mr. Barba threw himself off the couch, the sheer force with which he threw himself off the couch, and let’s just say I had a — not-not-similar — incident with my ex-boyfriend once, and, uh —”

Benson covered her mouth with her hand. “Say no more,” she assured Lucy.

“So, yeah, by the time Noah and I got home, Mr. Barba couldn’t stand up without help. I sent him to my friend who’s a PA. Not sure what story he told her, but — anyway —”

Benson tried not to laugh. “Can I send you home in a cab?”

“Sure,” Lucy said.

“Thank you for everything.”

“I don’t want to interfere in your personal life, but —”

“You’re not.”

“I’m glad he’s back.”

Benson smiled. “I am too. Not under the specific circumstances, but … he’s back.”

“How much longer do you two have to stay married?”

“At least three months.”

“Good luck,” Lucy said with a hint of a smirk.

After Lucy got into her cab, Benson changed into the pajama pants and long sleeved shirt she’d left hanging in the bathroom and slid beneath the comforter next to Barba, who was facing away from her. 

She kissed his shoulder and, as she moved to rest her head on the pillow, he grabbed her hand and placed it on his bare stomach. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

“She said it was a second-degree groin pull,” he said with a hazy whisper, “and she usually only sees that with sports injuries, so at least I can lie and say I did this while —”

“Sliding home?” she asked, and she felt his stomach rumble with laughter.

“Stay with me, Liv,” he said. 

“Is that you or the muscle relaxers talking?”

“Me, mostly.”

“Go back to sleep before you say anything you regret.”

He was quiet for around two minutes, then let out a long _mmmmmm_.

“You okay there?” she asked. Her arm was still around him.

“In the story from the Bible where Jacob wrestled with the angel, he was kicked in the groin. Jacob, I mean. You can’t kick an angel in the groin.”

“Okay.” She lifted her head to kiss his ear and ran a hand through his hair. “Go to sleep.”

“Jacob was kicked in the groin. That’s what the Confirmation class teacher told us. He said the original Old Testament said Jacob was kicked in the groin when he wrestled with the angel, but it was lost in the Greek translation.”

The thought briefly crossed her mind that now would be a _great_ time to ask Barba what his middle and Confirmation names were. She laughed to herself and let it go, but made a mental note to check the marriage license that she hadn’t yet looked at so that she could find out what Rafael Barba’s long-guarded middle name was.

She woke up just after 4AM to find Barba facing her with his eyes open.

“Were you watching me sleep?” she mumbled.

“Just trying to vaguely recollect all the ridiculous things I must have said after the muscle relaxer kicked in.”

She smiled. “How’s your —” she asked, lightly touching his thigh through his pajama pants.

“Better than yesterday afternoon.”

“Good.”

“Larchmont,” he said suddenly.

“No progress there.”

“He’s been extradited, right?”

“He will be. But the wife was never charged with a crime —”

“That’s Stone’s fault. If he’d charged her with covering up Larchmont’s assaults — conspiracy, lying to the investigators, anything — they could have extradited her too, even with the dual citizenships, and then their social services and ours could have made a very good argument for bringing the girls back to the US to live with their aunt.”

“Hey, Rafa?” she prompted, carefully snuggling closer to his chest.

“No, there’s no way to charge her now.” He reflexively ran a hand through her hair. “Or were you going to tell me to go the fuck back to sleep because the sun’s not up yet?”

“That too,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “But I also want to say — I need to say — that I was so angry at Stone for trying you for murder, so angry at you for leaving, that I —”

“Don’t do this. The fault is all with me for leaving the way I did.”

“No, Rafa,” she said, cupping his face in her hands, “you left _wrong_ , you broke my heart in a way I didn’t think my heart could be broken anymore, but I’m at fault too, because through my own broken heart, through my fury at Stone, I couldn’t see that you were terrified, that your life was in real danger.”

“So where do we go from here?’ Barba asked. “Together we’ve been through more than most married couples go through in 20 years, we are legally married now, so what are we supposed to do, start dating?”

“No idea,” she said.

“There is no precedent for our relationship.”

“Let’s sleep on it,” she suggested.

“Mm,” was all he said as he held her closer.

“We are unprecedented,” she echoed just before she dozed off again.

—

The next Monday, Barba got two of his Christmas wishes a week early: Dworkin called to let him know that the charges against him had been dropped entirely (though Mrs. Larchmont could still file a civil suit if she ever returned to the United States), and Benson called and told him, with nothing but relief in her voice, that she was only getting a notation on her record and would not lose her badge or her position as commanding officer, no matter how much the Ledger planned to ridicule her over the testimony-avoidance marriage.

“I’m going to pick up a 2012 Cabernet and we’ll toast to our improved fortune tonight,” he promised.

“You’re feeling well enough not to need a muscle relaxer?” she asked.

He lowered his voice even though the door to his office was closed. “I’m feeling well enough for more than that, querida.”

“A celebration it is,” she said.

Neither addressed the elephant in the room: now that the charges against Barba were dropped, they no longer needed to be married.

Barba brought home — _home?_ — a bottle of 2012 Cabernet and a bag full of greasy diner food, and they talked for hours, first him and Benson and Noah, and then just the two of them after Noah went to bed. They raised a toast, their third of the night, to pyrrhic victories.

“Come on,” he said, kissing a spot just under her jaw, “how about we consummate this marriage before we have to annul it?”

“ _I_ already consummated our marriage,” she teased. “Let’s go to bed.”

This time, she let him be intimate and tender with her — on the first go, though an hour later, she asked him to give her all his grit and passion and strength and girth and uncannily large hands — and he found himself wishing that there was some _precedent_ that would allow him to stay married to her.

—

On Friday, Barba called out of work because he had an interview with a family law firm in Brooklyn — surely a better fit for him now that his fate of never being a judge was sealed — and a meeting with Jack McCoy. He was a bit worried about the latter, since he’d requested that Barba come alone, without an attorney, but the onetime star ADA knew he could hold his own. 

Between meetings, he stopped at a downtown church, a space in which he was rarely present save for Christmas and Easter, to pray for the girls he’d tried but failed to help. Prayer was a lot of static if anything at all, but if there was ever hope of a prayer beaming out with a clear, unobstructed signal, it was in a prayer for child victims whose parents offered them no way out.

He’d only had a few bruises and hairline fractures, nothing like (he convinced himself) what Larchmont’s stepdaughters had endured for years, but he remembered the passion with which his mother defended his father, every excuse in the book, and he shuddered. 

_Get them out_ , he begged, silently, _get them out and let them be protected by the only relative who genuinely cares about their safety._

McCoy was waiting for Barba in his office. “I’ve let Stone go,” he said. “This is between us, but he should have locked down the dual citizenship issue months ago, when Larchmont was still your client.”

“And here I thought you’d be offering your _sincerest_ regrets for overprosecuting me,” Barba said, refusing to sit on the couch or in either of the chairs in McCoy’s office. “But of course you can’t do that because it opens your office up to lawsuits.”

“Rafael, you’re here so I can offer you your old job back.”

He took a few seconds to process the offer that might have been, in a million other contexts, welcome. “Too many conflicts of interest,” he said, careful not to _thank_ the man who’d put him in grave danger twice.

“You wouldn’t handle Larchmont,” McCoy assured him. “That case involves extradition, so it’s going to federal prosecutors and Captain Eames’ task force.”

Barba sighed. “I wasn’t talking about Larchmont.”

“Although I’m sure you and Lieutenant Benson will get a nasty talking-to from the judge who signs off on your annulment, there’s no real conflict of —” McCoy stopped himself. “All right, then. Best of luck to you.”

Barba nodded, said a hasty goodbye to his former boss, and started for the door.

“Rafael —” McCoy said.

Barba turned around. Maybe McCoy really did want to apologize for the danger he’d put him in, twice, for how he’d nearly thrown him to the COs who’d long wanted him dead, twice, but his look of _thinking about maybe apologizing_ meant nothing.

McCoy only added a “send my best to Olivia,” because he wasn’t about to risk a lawsuit or his office for the sake of making amends.

—

Benson was called down to 1PP the morning of Christmas Eve for a meeting with Captain Eames of the federal-city joint task force, so Barba knew something was going down with the Larchmonts, even though Benson had remained otherwise tight lipped. Barba sat at the dining room table and, on his laptop, filled out forms for the new job he’d be starting in January, as an associate with the family law firm in Brooklyn. 

He still hadn’t slept in his own apartment, even though he didn’t have to live at Benson’s anymore.

Barba got up to use the bathroom. When he returned, he found Noah in his seat, dji’ing the latest variations of Baby Shark on YouTube.

“Excuse me,” Barba said.

Noah looked up, feigning innocence. “I wanted to play music.”

“You and I need to have a talk about what _music_ is, and also, you shouldn’t be on YouTube by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a lot of, well, creepy stuff on there.”

“I know what to do.”

“People saying we never landed on the moon, or that the moon is made of cheese,” he told Noah. “People who say there are space aliens in your sock drawer, and, oh, they get angry if you tell them there are no space aliens in your sock drawer.”

Noah laughed. “You just hate Baby Shark.”

“I don’t hate anything,” Barba lied, for the boy’s moral benefit.

Noah folded his arms on the table and rested his chin atop them, still not yielding the chair back to Barba. “I know you and my mom are married.”

Barba flopped down into the chair next to Noah’s. “Do you?”

“I hear her when she talks on the phone about it. How come you didn’t tell me?”

“We, uh, wanted to make sure you were ready.”

“I always wanted my mom to get married. My friend got to be the ring bearer in his mom’s wedding in the summer. I thought my mom was going to marry Ed — remember him? — but he stopped coming over too.”

He’s six, Barba reminded himself, he’s six, he’s six.

“I love you, Noah,” was the best he could come up with on the fly. 

“But I didn’t get to go to your wedding,” Noah complained.

“We didn’t have a wedding. We had a five-minute ceremony where a judge signed papers.” He was digging himself a deeper and deeper hole.

“So have a wedding and I can be the ring bearer,” he said. “Please?”

“That’ll be up to your mom.” Dig, dig, dig.

“Then tell her you want to have a wedding.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please?”

Barba distracted Noah for a while with pizza and a tourist-jammed visit to the Rockefeller Center tree. When they got home around 5, Noah had apparently tabled the discussion of the wedding for the moment.

Benson came home an hour later. Noah was in his room playing. Before she removed her coat, she hugged Barba in silence. He felt her bury her face in his shoulder, so he tightened his embrace.

“How bad?” he asked.

“You don’t want to know,” she said hoarsely, almost breathless.

He rubbed her back and kissed her hair. “There was nothing else we could have done,” he assured her, even though he didn’t know the specifics yet.

“It’s on Stone, who thought it was more important to win a trial where you were the defendant than to lock down the Larchmont case.” She wiped her eyes and removed her coat. “You’re not staying for Christmas, are you?”

“Noah knows we got married,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

“Shit.”

“I distracted him for a while,” Barba said, brushing some of Benson’s hair away from her face with his fingers and tilting his head so he could catch her gaze. “Liv? Do you want me to stay tonight?”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to. We’re only — our relationship — is only starting out, isn’t it?”

He kissed her cheek, hard. “We are in unprecedented territory,” he reminded her.

He’d promised his mother that he’d go to midnight mass with her. Conflicted as he was about Lucia, especially now, with this kid latching (back) onto his heart these last few weeks, with the decision he made to risk his career and freedom because Mrs. Larchmont was so insistent on defending her husband over her children. He recognized that Lucia had suffered too, that she’d often experienced the worst of it.

“I’m going to midnight mass with my mother,” he said, “but I’d like to come back here and wake up Christmas morning and wake up with you and Noah, if you’ll have me.”

“I’d like that,” she said. He could tell she was holding back a sniffle.

“Noah wants to be the ring bearer in our wedding,” Barba said, laughing.

“You’ll have to find him a nice suit, then.”

“What?” He felt his own eyes burning, even as he laughed along with her. “We’ve only been back in each other’s lives for a month, and we’ve only —”

“We’ve loved each other for 6 years.”

“Yes.”

“And there is no precedent for the kind of relationship we have.”

“That sounds remarkably unhealthy.”

“It does. I know. If it was anyone else —”

He kissed her lips, then her face, again and again. “We’ll worry about the details after New Year’s. For now” — he was choking up, damn it — “whatever happens, whatever goes right, whatever goes wrong, I swear I’ll never break your heart, or Noah’s.”

Noah emerged from his room. “What happened?” he asked. “You’re crying.”

“Sweet boy,” Benson said, crouching down and holding Noah close, “I love you so much. So much. Is it okay if Uncle Rafa spends Christmas with us?”

“Yes, since you’re married?” he said. 

She squeezed him tighter. “We’ll talk about all of that soon.”

“Can I be ring bearer?”

“We’ll talk soon,” she repeated.

Of course no judge, or attorney, or psychologist in their right mind would advise that it was a good idea for them to stay married — even Rollins would probably roll her eyes at the news — but what Rafael Barba and Olivia Benson had was genuinely unprecedented. And if they were going to get through what happened with the Larchmonts, if they were going to get through the COs that still wanted Barba dead, if they were going to get through the still-reverberating aftershocks of the Householder case, it could only be together.


End file.
